I arrived in Paris on a charter plane from Ibiza after sunset one summer. I wanted films, interesting conversations about cinema and books, moonlight walks by the Seine, museums with fabulous art and everything the city had to offer.

The Greece I found; after a train to Bari and a ferry to Korfu, was different from Miller´s untrodden paradise. Still, I fell in love with it forever; I fell in love with its musical language, its delicious food, its people, its traditions, and the sheer beauty of its perfect little white towns overlooking the blue Aegean sea.

She would always speak of crystal-clear waters and untrodden paradise beaches, but, somehow, though we lived only a few kilometers away from the port of Sant Antoni in Ibiza, where one could take an inexpensive boat ride to the island, over 10 years went by before I saw Formentera with my own eyes.

Anyways, after this colorful ride, we were in Herculaneum. The differences with Pompeii are directly apparent on arrival. This is like looking at a whole city from above, only the roofs have been removed. Buildings here are much better preserved than in Pompeii, as Ercolano inhabitants were killed by the tremendous heat, and not by the ashes.

Herculaneum used to be a beach resort for rich Romans, so the ruins, located below ground level, are looking at an imaginary sea, as the water has long ago retired. Pompeii is huge, while Ercolano is rather manageable and, provided you have a good guide, you can get a pretty clear picture of it in one day.

We followed the drummers dancing like crazy. The llamadas consist of each group playing and dancing candombe and walking for some 10 blocks over a street called Isla de Flores. They start around the corner from my apartment, actually, but our seats were near the end of the line, so, when we followed the drummers as they exited the gates, police closed them behind us and said we couldn´t go back inside.

Ana couldn´t care less: she was going to be reunited with him, and nothing else mattered.

Every February 2nd, thousands of Uruguayans go to Ramírez beach in Montevideo to offer their gifts to the goddess of the sea and ask for her protection, for their secret crush to fall in love with them, for work, money, or whatever they may desire.

In a country where a blogger goes to prison for four years after criticizing the president, it is no secret that freedom of expression has been a standing concern.
After 30 years living in an ipso-facto dictatorship under Hosni Mubarak, it seems that Egypt has had enough.

However, when I saw images of an Egyptian museum after it had been ramsacked during protests, I felt a sense of terrible loss.